Last Update for a While
over 8 years ago – Sun, Oct 25, 2015 at 10:46:32 PM

Hello! This is likely to be my final update until after the books ship (more on that soon). Why? Well, I am a guest at three conventions over three weeks. First up is GMX in Nashville over Halloween weekend. The next is Gamehole Con in Madison, WI the weekend after. And the next after that is AcadeCon. You can grab all the details from here.

Shadow of the Demon Lord: The book is being printed and being floated across the ocean to arrive at the warehouse Thanksgiving week (fingers and toes crossed). The plan hasn't changed. I will be driving up, renting a big-ass truck, and hauling the cargo home to stuff in boxes. These will mail out in waves over a two week period. 

Retailer Adventure: As I mentioned last time, this bit is done and loaded on the website. The bookmarks have arrived and will be delivered with your books. 

Tales of the Demon Lord: We are 94% done. Hal is putting the finishing touches on the PDF and should turn over the final to me sometime tomorrow. A Print on Demand version of this product will be available a few weeks later.

Demon Lord Companion: The edited file is in and finals ought to come in by the first week of November. The product will move into layout immediately after with a release in December.

Screens: The deluxe and the non-deluxe are in production and they will ship with the books.

Demon Lord Adventures: So far, we've released A Measure of Faith by Steve Townshend, Wretched by Shane Hensley, The God Below by Steve Winter, A Year Without Rain by Bruce Cordell, The Slaver's Lash by Chris Pramas, and Survival of the Fittest by me! 

Coming up after Tales:

The Apple of Her Eye by Steve Kenson, a novice adventure.

Beware the Tides of Karshoon by T.S. Luikart. An expert adventure.

The Star's Refuge by Monte Cook. An expert adventure

The Giant's Tribute by Rich Baker. A master adventure.

And we still have adventures from Ken Hite, Miranda Horner, Jason Bulmahn, Scott Gray, David Noonan, Stephen Radney-MacFarland, Cam Banks, Chris Sims, Skip Williams, Matt Forbeck, Ed Greenwood, and Stan! I plan to continue the weekly (or nearly weekly) releases, though the next six weeks will be tricky.

Unholy Champions of the Demon Lord: This beast is done! Working with the supremely talent backers, we have assembled a killer product filled with grotesque art and much strangeness. This will be a new product up for sale in a week or so. Bask in the horror unleashed by our collective creativity.

Gaming with Rob: I will be scheduling these after the holidays.

Fiction: I have three stories in and the rest are due on Halloween. We will collect these as an anthology and release all at the same time.

Tombs of the Desolation: Editing is underway. I have artists lined up to tackle this book once turnovers come in for DLC. You should start seeing previews on this book in December.

Realms of the Faerie: Work continues, slowly. We've had some family crises that have made designing and writing "interesting." I'm aiming to have this one out in the spring.

Hell, Cults, Frozen, World, Void: All of these products are in the planning stages. I expect to get one out every other month after Faerie. Hell in June, Cults in August, World in August (I hope), Frozen (October), Horrors (December). These are tentative dates, of course.

Final Thoughts

If you want more information about Shadow of the Demon Lord, to find players and GMs, or simply want to hang out with cool people who love this game as much as you do, be sure to check out the following links.

For news, updates, and extra content, go to: www.schwalbentertainment.com.

For the official Shadow of the Demon Lord community, go here. 

And on Facebook, be sure to like Schwalb Entertainment, LLC for more previews, news, and other fun stuff and Shadow of the Demon Lord Cult for a small but fierce community of devotees to the Demon Lord.

Advanced Copies Arrived
over 8 years ago – Wed, Oct 14, 2015 at 07:38:29 PM

Just a quick update. The FedEx guy delivered a couple advanced copies this morning. I'm thrilled with how it turned out. Behold the Demon Lord's glory!

This. This is what WE made. Books are loading on the giant spaceship and sailing across the ocean to make landfall here. Once they arrive at Studio2's warehouse, I'm catapulting myself to Knoxville, renting a huge truck, and hauling them home to box up and mail to you. Thank you all for being a part of this incredible experience. 

October Update!
over 8 years ago – Thu, Oct 01, 2015 at 08:44:22 PM

By all that’s unholy, would you just look at what we’ve done so far? The campaign wrapped in April and we managed to get the PDFs of the game out in four months and are in the process of loading you up with adventures and adventures and even more adventures. Not bad, yeah? Worry not, I’m not resting yet. We have lots still to do.

Shadow of the Demon Lord: The book’s being printed and loaded onto a ship, floated across the ocean, and then transported to Knoxville Tennessee. Unless I’m devoured by the hobo, I plan to drive down, fetch the books, and drive back home. Packages will start heading your way throughout December so you can welcome Krampus with a big scary book. 

Retailer Adventure: All done and loaded on the website. I’m printing up bookmarks that I’ll include with your books so you can hand them out to your customers. Each bookmark has a QR code on the back that takes the customer to the adventure. 

Tales of the Demon Lord: All the art is in and the maps are starting to come in. I’m releasing the PDF this month if the stars are right, so keep an eye out for the email from DriveThruRPG to snag your PDF. 

Demon Lord Companion: Chris Sims is wrapping his pass as I write this post. Art is underway and the sketches are awesome. Want to see? Sure you do! 

Screens: The deluxe and the non-deluxe are in production and they will ship with the books. 

Demon Lord Adventures: You should have The Slaver’s Lash and The Year without Rain already. What’s coming?

The Apple of Her Eye by Steve Kenson, a novice adventure. 

The God Below by Steve Winter, also a novice adventure. 

A Measure of Faith by Steve Townshend. An expert adventure. 

Beware the Tides of Karshoon by T.S. Luikart. An expert adventure. 

Wretched by Shane Hensley. An expert adventure. 

Plus, we have adventures by Ken Hite, Monte Cook, Miranda Horner, Jason Bulmahn, and Rich Baker all in the works, plus many, many more. The plan is to release an adventure every week or so to keep a constant stream of awesome flowing into your inboxes. 

Design a Demon: Still underway. We had some scheduling challenges, but I hope to have the bulk of these wrapped by the middle of the month. I’ll slide these into editing, buy the art, and post these for everyone to enjoy. The first three were a great deal of fun and I’m sure you’ll love to terrorize your groups with Hinnom the Unslaked, the Bloated Duchess, Cromethius the Desire in Flesh, and more. 

Gaming with Rob: Once the Design a Demon deals are done, I’ll be setting up and scheduling these sessions. I plan to start running them in January since the holidays, me packing and shipping over a thousand parcels, and conventions are going to make time scarce.

Fiction: These are still being written, but I have the first story from Richard Lee Byers, and it's great. 

Tombs of the Desolation: Jennifer Clarke Wilkes returns to edit this beast. Editing starts October 5th. 

Realms of the Faerie: Formerly known as Alfheim, this (now) 32-page PDF is firmly in design. As with Tombs, I’m designing three ancestries for this supplement: elf, hobgoblin, and pixie. That’s all I have at the moment. 

Final Thoughts

If you want more information about Shadow of the Demon Lord, to find players and GMs, or simply want to hang out with cool people who love this game as much as you do, be sure to check out the following links. 

For news, updates, and extra content, go to: www.schwalbentertainment.com. 

For the official Shadow of the Demon Lord community, go here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/115188020895299223511?cfem=1 

And on Facebook, be sure to like Schwalb Entertainment, LLC for more previews, news, and other fun stuff and Shadow of the Demon Lord Cult for a small but fierce community of devotees to the Demon Lord.

Super Fast Update
over 8 years ago – Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 11:05:22 PM

Four things.

Thing One: Physical books should land in the warehouse in late November. Hail Seitan! Shipping will start around then and continue over the next couple of weeks.

Thing Two: GM screens. The Deluxe screens are in production. The regular screens are in production and very cool. If you can't wait, want to build your own, or have the Hammerdog landscape super ultimate best screen of death, you can snag 8 panels right here.

Thing Three: Disciples and backers at higher levels, I just squeezed out the Disciple of the Demon Lord PDF. This evil file is en route to your inbox. Once more, if you don't see it, check your spam folder. If not there, send me a message through Kickstarter so I can send you a direct download. 

Thing Four: I'm off to GuildCon in Savannah this weekend, so I'm out of the office until 9/21.

Thanks!

Rob

September Update
over 8 years ago – Thu, Sep 03, 2015 at 11:27:02 PM

I'm headed down to Dragon*Con today, but before I leave I wanted to fling some updates into the tubes.

Now

My first two products have been released into the wild and I'm quite happy with how they have ben received. To those evangelists who have been spreading the evil news, thank you! 

Shadow of the Demon Lord: The PDF is up and available for sale at Schwalb Entertainment, DriveThruRPG, RPGNow, and shop.d20pfsrd.com. Next week, you'll be able to also purchase Schwalb Entertainment products from Paizo, if you're so inclined.

Kim Mohan, being the awesome guy that he is, is reading through the PDF and working directly with Hal Mangold to squash the last bugs in the PDF. You can expect an updated file sometime soon. Anything crunchy that gets a change, I'll note in the update email.

As well, Shadow of the Demon Lord is at the printer. The check's been mailed. You can set your timers: the books should arrive at Studio2's warehouse sometime within the next 12 weeks. I will be driving down, loading up 1,500 books, and driving them home for shipping out while singing Krampus songs.

Survival of the Fittest: The first SotDL adventure is live and available at all the places mentioned above.

BEDLAM: During the Kickstarter, my friend Rick set up a Shadow of the Demon Lord community on Google+ and it has become the official community for the game. My team of moderators, which includes Rick, Nat, and Luke, are there to answer questions, collect errata, and be awesome. So if you have questions about the game, head on over to the community. 

Very Soon

We have a ton of product coming and I've been a bit worried about a bottleneck forming at the layout stage. To resolve this, I recruited my friend Kara to tackle the small stuff.

In Need of Killing: The second adventure is exclusive to backers of certain levels. It's through layout, awaiting one piece of art. This alternate starting adventure will not be sold.

Here's the killer hand-drawn may by Cecil Howe.

Disciple of the Demon Lord: Another exclusive, this six-in-one expert path also goes to backers of a particular level and higher and will not be sold. I hand over the edited file to Kara this morning.

Victims of the Demon Lord: Hal is tackling what used to be known as the starter guide next week. All assets for this are in and ready to go, so it's just a matter of assembly. Shipping this checks another box, which is good for my sanity.

Design a Demon: Queries went out to backers who wanted to create demonic goodness with me this week. I will schedule them next week and start knocking them out.

Gaming with Rob: Queries about setting game sessions should go out in the next couple of weeks. If you're a backer at this level, stay tuned.

Soon

Soon is sometime in the next 4-8 weeks.

More Adventures: I have adventures by Bruce Cordell and Steve Winter. Chris Pramas's should be along soon, and Kenson, Townshend, and Hite are all toiling on theirs. Contracts for the third set are out and design should start on those in a couple weeks. I'm tackling the editing and art direction for these. Kara is handling layout. Maps will be handled by my friends Dan and Cecil, and we'll be pushing them out one at a time, so you should have a steady stream of content.

"A Year without Rain" by Bruce Cordell is the first. 

"The God Below" by Steve Winter is second.

Both are nearly through editing and I'll be commissioning the art next week.

Tales of the Demon Lord: This is the next big project, being 48 pages of Crossings and eleven adventures. Jack Kaiser is handling the illustrations on this one and art has been rolling. Cecil Howe is producing more hand-drawn maps for the book, all of which should be quite tasty. I expect art and maps to land in 3 weeks, layout to take a week or so, and product to go out soon after. This supplement will be a PDF, but I am setting it up to release as a Print On Demand product as well.

Here's a look at source of much trouble:

Retailer Adventure: Sometime in the coming weeks, I'll be pushing this through layout and getting promo cards printed so retailers can hand them out with the books they sell. This product is through the editing process and will be ready by the time the printed books move into the channel.

A Bit Off

These are the products that are coming, but still a bit off.

Short Stories: Richard Lee Byers has already handed over his first draft and it's awesome. Jim Lowder is doing his read through and sending comments back to Richard. It's looking good and should be moving into production soon. The rest all should come to me by Halloween.

Demon Lord's Companion: This 48-page supplement is in editing. We're commissioning art for it next week. 

Some cool things we're doing with this book are introducing traits you can add to  ancestries. Here are a couple (not edited yet):

Cursed

A person of great power laid a curse on you that prevents you from performing a certain activity. The GM chooses the activity from which you must refrain, but it cannot be anything that would directly harm you, your property, or your loved ones. Examples include having sex, drinking alcohol, or eating meat.

CURSED TRAITS

Taboo You are cursed. When you perform a task that violates the taboo, you must get a success on a Will challenge roll with 3 banes or take damage equal to your healing rate and become stunned for 1d3 minutes. You cannot be affected by breaking your taboo more than once each hour.

Trapped in this Life When you make a fate roll, roll an extra d6 and use the highest number of all the dice rolled.

Possessed

An evil presence lurks inside you, haunting your dreams and goading you to commit horrific acts of evil. The presence has become a cancer to your soul, but you fight it every day, searching for a way to rid yourself of its wickedness.

POSSSESSED TRAITS

Possession Gain 1d3 Corruption. If you die, a small demon crawls out of your body and stands up in the nearest open space to your body and remains until destroyed.

Inured to Darkness You can speak the Dark Speech and you never gain Insanity from a demon’s horrifying trait.

Tombs of the Desolation: The first of the setting supplements is still in testing. If you're interested in testing, definitely check out BEDLAM as I will be posting mechanics there for people to use before release and submit feedback. This supplement is now 32 pages.

Alfheim: Outlining on this setting supplement begins next week, I hope. I have some wild and weird ideas. Not sure what the final page count for this will be, but it will at least be 16 pages as promised.

The Future

Several people have asked me about Unspeakable Things, The Grand Grimoire, the Sci-Fi setting, and other mentioned supplements that did not get unlocked via stretch goals. I have a lot to keep me busy at the moment, but I hope I will get to make all of them. As we claw through the stretch goal awards, I'll be looking at options for producing additional books beyond those unlocked from the campaign, options that might include a new Kickstarter campaign ::shudder::